Fighting Gamer News

Ever since it was announced, there has been some speculation on who is actually doing development on SNK’s new Samurai Shodown (a.k.a. Samurai Spirits). The game running on Unreal Engine 4, as well as featuring an art style reminiscent more of Street FighterIV has led some to wonder if people who worked on the latter, such as artist Daigo Ikeno, are involved in the new game.

Well, now the speculation can end. SNK’s Nobuyuki Kuroki, who was the art director for The King of Fighters XIV, has confirmed that not only is he resuming the role for Samurai Shodown, he’s also now in the director’s chair as well.

In addition to this, Kuroki has also confirmed that Samurai Shodown is being developed in-house at SNK. In fact, the team working on it is the same team that worked on The King of Fighters XIV, and SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy.

While this may surprise some, considering that SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy just launched and is still receiving updates, the latter does reuse a lot from their previous game. More importantly, it does mean that a number of veteran developers of the genre who worked on the previous games, including battle director Hidetoshi “Neo_G” Ishizawa — whose credits include Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, Capcom vs. SNK 2, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 — are now hard at work on the new Samurai Shodown.